Generative Metrics

consider this an adjunct thread to Tzara's Sound and Meter thread, not in competition to...some material directly supports, some points out limitations, some suggest an improved system that may better help the understanding of stress;
his might be posted as a compositional aid, these more analytical, so I don't see much of an overlap.

Stress Based Metrics Revisited

regarding 6 beats in a pentameter line

from about the second page

The following lines and their scansions, culled from a number of traditional handbooks on prosody, begin to illustrate the range of possible iambic pentameter lines

Love has/ found out / a way/ to live/ by dying.

6 stresses 11 syllable line, substitutions all acceptable, presented to clear up any misconception that iambic pentameter is always 5 in 10

this regarding scansion: page 135

More problematically, a ‘scansion’ of a line is not enough to determine its metre: both because the metricality of a line is determined by the context of the poem as a whole, and because there is no line, metrical or not, that cannot be notated as a matter of total substitutions. italics mine


This is why I am free verse, it gets more complicated, I am probably talking to myself, but at least I might be able to find it again.

twelveoone said:

consider this an adjunct thread to Tzara's Sound and Meter thread, not in competition to..

The following lines and their scansions, culled from a number of traditional handbooks on prosody, begin to illustrate the range of possible iambic pentameter lines

Love has/ found out / a way/ to live/ by dying.

6 stresses 11 syllable line, substations all acceptable, presented to clear up any misconception that iambic pentameter is always 5 in 10 This I get

More problematically, a ‘scansion’ of a line is not enough to determine its metre: both because the metricality of a line is determined by the context of the poem as a whole, This I get. and because there is no line, metrical or not, that cannot be notated as a matter of total substitutions. italics mine This I don't


This is why I am free verse, it gets more complicated, I am probably talking to myself, but at least I might be able to find it again.

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I don't think so. I'd like to hear more about this.

greenmountaineer said:

twelveoone said:

Originally Posted by twelveoone View Post
consider this an adjunct thread to Tzara's Sound and Meter thread, not in competition to..

The following lines and their scansions, culled from a number of traditional handbooks on prosody, begin to illustrate the range of possible iambic pentameter lines

Love has/ found out / a way/ to live/ by dying.

6 stresses 11 syllable line, substations all acceptable, presented to clear up any misconception that iambic pentameter is always 5 in 10 This I get

More problematically, a ‘scansion’ of a line is not enough to determine its metre: both because the metricality of a line is determined by the context of the poem as a whole, This I get. and because there is no line, metrical or not, that cannot be notated as a matter of total substitutions. italics mine This I don't


This is why I am free verse, it gets more complicated, I am probably talking to myself, but at least I might be able to find it again.

Click to expand...

I don't think so. I'd like to hear more about this.

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I think what 1201 means by the statement about substitution is that if metrical substitutions are allowed, any particular meter can be transformed into any other meter through substitution. If I am writing iambic pentameter and replace all of the iambs in a particular line with trochees, I get a line that looks like it is in trochaic pentameter but "isn't really," as the line in the context of the entire poem is a modified line of iambic pentameter.

That's taking substitution to a point where it doesn't really make any sense, but if one assumes there are no limits on transformation of individual feet, you can flip any meter into any other meter through substitution. I don't think you can change tetrameter to pentameter through a transformational process, though. You'd have to re-scan the line and change how the line was divided into feet.

Tzara said:

I think what 1201 means by the statement about substitution is that if metrical substitutions are allowed, any particular meter can be transformed into any other meter through substitution. If I am writing iambic pentameter and replace all of the iambs in a particular line with trochees, I get a line that looks like it is in trochaic pentameter but "isn't really," as the line in the context of the entire poem is a modified line of iambic pentameter.

That's taking substitution to a point where it doesn't really make any sense, but if one assumes there are no limits on transformation of individual feet, you can flip any meter into any other meter through substitution. I don't think you can change tetrameter to pentameter through a transformational process, though. You'd have to re-scan the line and change how the line was divided into feet.

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The example above and in Shelley's seem right and are easily explained in generative metrics, which disallows the spondee or rather more aptly works around the unlikely incidence of three equally stressed* or unstressed syllables
(Burn, Burn, Burn?) in sequence.

* like here
An old, mad, blind, despis'd, and dying king,




now to be sure, I am trying to figure out what is acceptable in traditional scansion
p.136
gives a reading of twelve syllables, by Fussel on a line by Yeats


My /i ly form/from a/ny na/tu ral thing,/
with two anapestic substitutions

giving 5 and 12

although this one looks suspect

But somewhere I came across a reading that appeared to be in one metre but really was in another, and when I find it again will post it.

btw trochaic pentameter would be ruled as unmetrical and/or disallowed in any English system that I know of. What about 5 anapests, i.e. prepositional phrases in a row? In an otherwise normal pentameter poem?

I don't know the limit of beat or syllable count in what is considered "traditional Iambic Pentameter" before it ceases to be iambic pentameter.


Mere questions here. A generative method offers an alternative to feet in a line approach.
Will post more, shortly.

Again this may help clear up the problem people seem to have with stress.

I'm currently reading Andrew Kaufman's book The Complete Cinnamon Bay Sonnets. I think these days reference to form is taken as quite a loose description. These are beautiful poems, I must say, and the book is well worth the cost, but I would not have called one, by itself, a sonnet. Taken together, however, one begins to fall into the feel of them.

I'd think it is desirable to substitute a bit in an iambic pentameter line, but only for elegance or meaning. Unless one, like Kaufman, just scraps the idea completely.

following this thread with the hope some of it might be absorbed osmosis-style. i think i kind of get it, and can hear/feel substitutions, even use them , but when i read the posts above my brain tends to shy away - it all sounds so complicated.

twelveoone said:

btw trochaic pentameter would be ruled as unmetrical and/or disallowed in any English system that I know of. What about 5 anapests, i.e. prepositional phrases in a row? In an otherwise normal pentameter poem?

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1201, why not trochaic 5metres? How about this one of mine?

PROPHESIES

Prophets pushing forward, stirring nations,
prophesies distilled through keen believers,
disregarding their annihilations,
flowing back to sea in countless rivers.

(as for 5 anapests)
GREEN WEE MEN

In the wood where I stood there was nothing to do but become
one of those green wee men to the truth of the tale adding charm.

How else should I classify them?

twelveoone said:

btw trochaic pentameter would be ruled as unmetrical and/or disallowed in any English system that I know of.

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Why? I will grant you that there don't seem to be any examples of it--trochaic meter seems to be exclusively tetrameter, but why should trochaic pentameter be "disallowed?"

Does generative metrics explain that? I'm willing to accept that it might.

twelveoone said:

What about 5 anapests, i.e. prepositional phrases in a row? In an otherwise normal pentameter poem?

Click to expand...

Same question. I've seen anapestic tetrameter but not anapestic pentameter. Why? Is there simply some limit to syllables in the line? If so, how does Poe get away withwhich is trochaic octameter (!).

So why do we not see poems in trochaic pentameter or anapestic pentameter?

Presumably, these are awkward meters, but why are they?

butters said:

following this thread with the hope some of it might be absorbed osmosis-style. i think i kind of get it, and can hear/feel substitutions, even use them , but when i read the posts above my brain tends to shy away - it all sounds so complicated.

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How 'bout now?




I'm a bit like you.

In one ear, out the other and all I want to do is write a poem titled Degenerative Metrics.

Tzara said:

Why? I will grant you that there don't seem to be any examples of it--trochaic meter seems to be exclusively tetrameter, but why should trochaic pentameter be "disallowed?"

Does generative metrics explain that? I'm willing to accept that it might.
Same question. I've seen anapestic tetrameter but not anapestic pentameter. Why? Is there simply some limit to syllables in the line? If so, how does Poe get away with

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—​

which is trochaic octameter (!).

So why do we not see poems in trochaic pentameter or anapestic pentameter?

Presumably, these are awkward meters, but why are they?

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Once upon a midnight dreary,
while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious <---awkward as fuck
volume of forgotten lore— (8,8,8,7)

While I nodded, nearly napping,
suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping,
rapping at my chamber door. ( 8,8,8,7) + 8,7,7 refrain = 84 feet

Ah, distinctly I remember
it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember
wrought its ghost upon the floor. (8,8,8,7)

Eagerly I wished the morrow;
—vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow—
sorrow for the lost Lenore— (8,8,8,7) 8,7,7 refrain = 84 feet

Even Poe doesn't attempt a true octet, he's paired all his socks though.

Dactyls and spondee are the mother of English free verse and force dear poet to utilize techniques that are not plain rhyme.

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
“Charge for the guns!” he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Trochee and iambus are fit for perfect rhyme and perfect meter because they are constant pairs waiting for their constant rhyming cousins.

Attempting hexameter and beyond with iambs or trochees is practically entering near earth orbit. You lose your launching point and end up in the Pacific. The trochee itself is an unbearable unit, sort of like the polka beat.

bflagsst said:

Once upon a midnight dreary,
while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious <---awkward as fuck
volume of forgotten lore— (8,8,8,7)

While I nodded, nearly napping,
suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping,
rapping at my chamber door. ( 8,8,8,7) + 8,7,7 refrain = 84 feet

Ah, distinctly I remember
it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember
wrought its ghost upon the floor. (8,8,8,7)

Eagerly I wished the morrow;
—vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow—
sorrow for the lost Lenore— (8,8,8,7) 8,7,7 refrain = 84 feet

Even Poe doesn't attempt a true octet, he's paired all his socks though.

Dactyls and spondee are the mother of English free verse and force dear poet to utilize techniques that are not plain rhyme.

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
“Charge for the guns!” he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Trochee and iambus are fit for perfect rhyme and perfect meter because they are constant pairs waiting for their constant rhyming cousins.

Attempting hexameter and beyond with iambs or trochees is practically entering near earth orbit. You lose your launching point and end up in the Pacific. The trochee itself is an unbearable unit, sort of like the polka beat.

Click to expand...

Well, yes, that Poe sample clearly parses as (mostly) trochaic tetrameter, but he didn't write it that way--didn't break the lines that way.

So the question becomes why didn't he? I'd guess he knew more about what he was doing than you or me, so why did he form his verse as octameter?

He had a reason for it, unless you think him an incompetent dunce. What was it?

Tzara said:

Well, yes, that Poe sample clearly parses stly) trochaic tetrameter, but he didn't write it that way--didn't break the lines that way.

So the question becomes why didn't he? I'd guess he knew more about what he was doing than you or me, so why did he form his verse as octameter?

He had a reason for it, unless you think him an incompetent dunce. What was it?

Click to expand...

I parsed it the way I think he wrote it and the way i read it. What is curious is why 'curious' isn't a perfect rhyme or even a discrete unit. He begins his complex order with an aberration, gives the reader room to interpret the cadence. Maybe it's just an early clue to set up the seven syllable lines. It's not altogether strange for the order obsessed either.

I think for Poe it's an attempt at keeping a well-versed in verse reader's interest. The lines aren't boundaries, the octet is bound within the line followed by a second. His keen interest in undermining monotony in the art form is documented, he wasn't talking so much about breaking meter though. I'm not being very clear. I'm saying these true pentameters and hexameters are often broken by the author to inject some reader creativity...opinion of course.

..............
Then this ebony bird beguiling (eb'ny)
my sad fancy into smiling
By the grave and stern decorum
of the countenance it wore,—
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven,
thou," I said, "art sure no craven, 45
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven
wandering from the Nightly shore:


No one's pronouncing 'ebony' as 'eb'ny' though. Keats may have written it as eb'ny.

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,


So, does it matter to Poe how his reader pronounces/stresses curious, ebony etc. how he envisions or not at all?

Reading poetry, especially form poetry, you're suspending your judgement always waiting for a pattern, repetition, rhyme to come to fruition. a/b/c/a is the agreed upon maximal suspension of sound for end rhyme. I don't see any reason why a pentameter can't add or subtract a stress and not return it in a neighboring line if the overall stanza generally follows clear pattern.


For long have I lived underground,
my chrism came through you,
lost within a sot's sortilege,
you drag me on in lieu;
understand that you can have me,
no need for ruth nor rue,
vaunt frivolously before me,
your lips prove you are through


After studying forms for some time and deciding I would write as a poet and not as a hobbyist I wrote this poem. I spent most of my time debating whether 'frivolously' was acceptable because I pronounced it friv-lous-ly when I wanted to obey the meter with a discrete fri-vo-lous-ly. I wanted to honor the tradition with a strict meter but I couldn't decide which pronunciation was 'correct' for the poem. There has to be a reason why the textbook examples of poems defined by their elements of prosody usually come close but not quite all the way toward being perfect texts.

Magnetron said:

How 'bout now?




I'm a bit like you.

In one ear, out the other and all I want to do is write a poem titled Degenerative Metrics.

Click to expand...

wait... wait...

no it served merely as a momentary distraction *rubs head*



it's the names, they just kind of slide away and that baffles me. i don't have he same trouble with latin plant names or medical terminology, so why does this happen with the naming of poetic technicalities? it just does

Tzara said:

Well, yes, that Poe sample clearly parses as (mostly) trochaic tetrameter, but he didn't write it that way--didn't break the lines that way.

So the question becomes why didn't he? I'd guess he knew more about what he was doing than you or me, so why did he form his verse as octameter?

He had a reason for it, unless you think him an incompetent dunce. What was it?

Click to expand...

how did he write it?

Tzara said:

Well, yes, that Poe sample clearly parses as (mostly) trochaic tetrameter, but he didn't write it that way--didn't break the lines that way.

So the question becomes why didn't he?

Click to expand...

It's pretty obvious. His poem (long lines) has a beautiful dreamy quality. It's very smooth. If you broke his lines in half it would be bang-bang-bang.